Since I got an iPhone last March (my first smartphone), the way that I access and consume information has changed. While I’ve had an iPad for about 5 months, I hadn’t yet gotten a 3G card from my carrier. There is a big difference between having access to the Internet anywhere and just not being able to do so. The places I go to don’t have reliable free WiFi. The iPhone 4S allows me to tether my iPad for free, because my carrier is CHT in Taiwan and they are partly government-owned, my iPad 2 still hasn’t gotten an 3G card.

Like this:

Errol Morris’ What’s in a Name parts 2and 3. It’s definitely an interesting series of essays, as people in Chinese cultures have a very different way of approaching names. While most of them never change their family name, a lot of them change their English name and Chinese first name, even at a very young age. I’ve had grade 1 students change their names very suddenly. It’s rarer to change your Chinese first name, but it happens often compared to what I’m used to.

Like many viewers, who saw HBO’s Girls last week, one of the most intriguing parts of the show was when a girl instructed her friend on the totem pole of chat. That term has been in my mind for the last week or so and I’ve spent time thinking about the idea. In our modern connected society, communication has evolved significantly, which is something that a lot of people have trouble grasping. It’s no longer the difference between snail mail and email, but the vast different ways that people of all ages communicate these days, from texts, messaging systems, and life streams.

Like this:

When lost, look around and try to find a person who looks like they know where they are going and follow them.

I’m going to try this the next time I am lost since I don’t have satnav on my scooter. Subconsciously, we’ve all done this before. I’ve done it on the weekend when I had to take a detour and didn’t really know where I was going. I just followed other people.

I was pretty sad when I realized that when NASA retired its STS, their aging Space Shuttle Program, there would be no replacement since President Obama scrapped Project Constellation in October 2010. It opens the door for China and India to advance in their shuttle programs or develop their own. I also thought it was pretty ironic remembering the plans of manned missions to Mars, a moon base, and other missions. Now, it’s only in science-fiction that the US has a manned space program, and even those show get canceled (Eureka and the Astreus mission, which was canceled earlier this week).